Insider Trader: Guide to farming cloth - Fri, 28 Mar 2008 19:36:00 ESTCloth is like the gathering profession for everyone. You don't have to pay to pick it up, and there are no skills to level. Because of the sheer number of tailors, the amount of cloth tailoring eats up (not to mention first aid), cloth gathering can be a lucrative pass-time. Failing that, it can provide for your own cloth needs without having to hit the auction house.

This week's Insider Trader will be going in-depth into the world of farming for cloth, and tackling the following issues:

The best areas to farm the cloth you need.

How to alleviate some of the boredom.

Ways to make the most out of your farming stints.

We will also be covering cloth that can be obtained by even level ones, and not just level 70s, as well as information about what it is used for, and who is going to want it.

Linen cloth. (lvl 1-15)

Wool cloth. (lvl 14-30)

Silk cloth. (lvl 28-40)

Mageweave cloth. (lvl 38-50)

Runecloth. (lvl 50-62)

Netherweave cloth. (lvl 58-70+)

Felcloth. (lvl 50-60).

Whether your career hinges on stacks of cloth or you're looking to finance your other exploits, you won't want to miss this week's guide.

So, now that phase 1 of the Shattered Sun Offensive is over on many servers, phase 2 is in full swing. Phase 2 is a little bit smaller than phase 1, but you can still do all the phase 1 quests just fine, so it's more of a question of deciding how many you want to fit into your daily rotation. So what about the phase 2 quests? Progression needs aside, are they worth doing?

With the Agility on there, this thing is probably best meant for Hunters -- only they can really benefit by changing Agi directly into Ranged Attack Power. Warriors and Paladins may benefit occasionally, but since Agi translates into Armor and Dodge for them, and the goal when wielding a big two hander is to do damage, not dodge it, it's really at cross purposes with most DPS melee-ers. Armor is always good for tanks, of course, but a shield will give you much more armor than this thing's Agility will.

The only problem with this thing is that it doesn't really have any Stamina or hit/crit on it, so players looking to max those will probably pass on this for something else. But Hunters looking to crank ranged DPS (especially with a slow bow or gun) will like this one a lot.

How to Get It: It's brand new in the game as of patch 2.4, and while on the PTR it supposedly dropped from Felmyst, we're told that it now drops from the trash near Kalecgos. Since players are just starting to head in that way, expect this to start showing up in player hands soon.

We don't have too much info on the drop rate yet, but there's good news and bad news. Since it's from trash you'll have a lot more chance for it to drop, because it'll be in the loot tables of more than one mob. The bad news, of course, is that it is probably a super low rate, so cross your fingers and hope for it to show up if you're running Sunwell Plateau regularly.

Getting Rid of It: Disenchants into a Void Crystal, as usual, and sells to vendors for 18g 80s 53c.

Apparently Blizzard spent some time rebuilding all the player models for Patch 2.4 in order to increase performance. What exactly does this mean to us players who loves the way our characters look? Absolutely nothing. You won't notice any differences in the models at all -- except, that is, if you happen to play a human female. Then you might look deep into your characters eyes and notice a certain "Stepford-wife" look, like a "2000-yard stare," as if her "irises are popping out of her head."

Asariah noticed this and posted his concerns in the Bug Report Forum (did you know there was a Bug Report Forum? neat huh?). Hortus spotted this report and informed us that the human female was the only one of the multiple races to receive a minor alteration from this, and that "it was decided that this was an acceptable change." Apparently someone up there at Blizzard is a big fan of 2000-yard, iris-popping, stepford-wife eyes in women!

For my part, though, I have to get up really close to my human female character to notice the difference -- and then when I do it makes me giggle uncontrollably. It's really no worse, in my opinion, than all those glowy reflections you see in anime girls' eyes. And to be honest, human women have always been a bit vacant-looking in WoW; they're better than human men, of course, but still don't usually look like paragons of profound intelligence. At least they don't bounce up and down like night-elf girls do.

Gamers on the Street logs onto U.S. servers to get the word from the front on what's going on in and around the World of Warcraft.

I'll admit it: I haven't hit the Sunwell yet. My new main is a fresh 70 ("virgin" might be an appropriate word to describe her, except that - well, I PvP), and my guildies and I are simply overwhelmed with the number of things on our to-do lists right now. None of us is much interested in braving the crowds to see the new content; we'll get there once the furor has died down.

But 2.4 introduced more than just the Sunwell - we've got AV and WSG "fixes" in action! Did the fixes really fix these BGs? I have my own thoughts about AV (fine before, fine now; lots of imbalances still, but they don't prevent me from winning most instances when my team is with me), but I haven't had the time yet to get into WSG. Ever curious, I popped in on Wildhammer realm to chat with some of the folks gathered 'round the battlemasters and get their impressions.

As exciting as Patch 2.4 has been so far, most of the attention has been on the all-new content on the Isle of Quel'danas. WoW Insider has put together a comprehensive walkthrough of all the daily and Shattered Sun Offensive-related quests to help guide you so you can coast your way to Shattered Sun rep and earn more than a few Gold along the way. Among the few additions that didn't get as much of the spotlight but deserve mention are the new PvP daily quests, so players can spice up their PvP routine beyond the usual daily Battleground quest. Now even hardcore PvP enthusiasts can earn some Gold on the side while killing enemies. How cool is that?

Click on the links after the jump to find out more about the new PvP dailies that exploded with Patch 2.4.

The Care and Feeding of Warriors plays catch-up this week with Patch 2.4. Matthew Rossi has been tanking the new five man, doing badge runs, and being obscenely lucky on drops this week, to the point where he's almost embarrassed about it. The word 'almost' was used advisedly.

So this week I've been running around doing as much of the new content as I can, dailies, the new five man, an abortive run into Sunwell Plateau (no matter what your friend in the Illidan guild tells you, you cannot heal that instance in Karazhan gear, not that I really expected to survive) and of course the usual raiding, which includes our badge runs into Kara and ZA. As primarily a tank, I usually pass on DPS gear unless no dedicated DPS players need/want them, so while i have a few good pieces it hasn't been my main focus.

This week, however, the loot fairy came along and just threw gear at me. On Wednesday night, our usual SSC clear netted me World Breaker, a mace I've always stared at with wonder. First off, I've always loved the model. Check it out, that thing is wicked. I never expected to get the weapon... like I said, prot spec... but nobody else who could use it wanted it. So I snatched it up greedily and made cooing Gollumesque noises about it and went on with tanking. Since I have some decent pieces for my chest and legs but lacked any plate helmet, shoulder or glove option for whackery, I ran out and picked the new Savage Plate gear for those slots and enchanted/gemmed them up. I knew I wasn't going to set the world on fire but I thought I could have some fun in BG's.

Though no servers have reached phase 3 of the reclaiming of Quel'Danas, it's always good to be prepared. Many servers began Phase 2 just yesterday, and phase 3 is well under way. My server sits at around 14% complete of retaking the Armory after Day One, and I expect this to pick up over the weekend. Within a week, many of us will likely be transitioning into the most anticipated of the phases.

Why is it the most anticipated? Well, as soon as this phase begins, you gain access to a General Goods vendor, someone to repair your armor, as well as a handful of new daily quests. As you progress through this phase, you also gain access to the new Badge of Justice rewards vendor. The ultimate goal of this phase? Capturing the Sun's Reach Harbor.

Laij of Laughing Skull believes that the new battleground matching system is a blow to PvP guilds.He said, "The new patch and matchmaking system has just nerfed the hell out of any pvp guild. Why run BG premades anymore? All you do is get matched up with other premades that are going to drag games out extremely long."Unsurprisingly, this was not particularly well received.

What is notable is that the thread has elicited a response from Drysc who said "Fair and challenging gameplay? The horror..."This comment opened Drysc (as a Blizzard representative) up to both criticism and support from readers.Some cheered him on for calling out the whining of the original poster, others said that class imbalance makes battlegrounds imbalanced.

It's been a while since PvE machinimator, Kerp, has documented his journey on Warcraftmovies. However, it looks like Patch 2.4 has brought him out of hiding. He captured footage of his experience with the mighty Kalecgos.

The verdict on Kelecgos? Kerp claims that the boss was harder than expected, as he didn't have hours of practice beforehand. You won't have to be unprepared, as he has it in 1280x1024 goodness. It's not exactly artistic, and it's certainly no How to Paladin, but it's good to see some of the new bosses!

Masterdragon will be updating the list two or three times a day and requests that you check the list before posting your server's phase status.

I'm impressed that Masterdragon is putting in all this effort to update this tracking list. It's too bad that Blizzard can't provide one for us so that he doesn't have to. An official list could indicate the percentage completed for each phase as well. But I suppose they have enough work putting a spin on the undocumented changes that have popped up in Patch 2.4.

Do you think Blizzard should have an official list? Or are you just happy that a fellow player took the initiative to make one himself?

Patch days are usually wild, crazy things, full of massive world PvP and competing for quest kills and standing on top of mailboxes on a new mount. Which is why it's somewhat disturbing to see a screenshot of a brand-new area looking like The Birds. Jilira, of Perenolde's Black Dragon Clan, suggests that her servermates are waiting for 100% completion of the Sunwell opening. To me, it looks more like they're gearing up for a race around the world. What do you think?

Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We prefer full screen shots without the UI showing. And please, no more sunsets. Azeroth is actually lit by an orbiting pile of blazing garbage. You're just deluding yourself.

How to put WoW Insider on your web site and computer - Fri, 28 Mar 2008 09:00:00 ESTEveryone these days either has a blog or a guild site that they post to regularly; and it's especially common amongst the World of Warcraft and the greater MMORPG community. One of the neat features of most of these sites is that they allow you to subscribe to other blogs, like WoW Insider. The software of these sites and tools can put up our headlines in easy to access places, so you and all your friends can stay up to date on the latest World of Warcraft news.

Getting this setup might seem like a hard thing to do, but it's really not. In fact, with our guide, complete with pictures, you'll be able to get WoW Insider's latest news on your site in no time! We give you step-by-step instructions for sites and software like Guild Portal, Guild Launch, Blogger.com, Word Press, vBulletin, Google Reader, Outlook, and more. We also tell you the info you need to get our news setup on any other site.

Whenever I see free character transfers, I always check to see if my realm is on the list.It never is, probably because it's medium population (though apparently it also has to do with queue times).I don't think I would seriously consider transferring, even for free.

At one point I tried rolling on a low population server.I had a good group of friends to play with, but it was hard to PuG anything.I wound up transferring two characters from that server to my main realm.Several friends did the same.Unless it's an entirely new type of server, I think I'll stay where I am.

Some realms like Ghostlands have really taken off, others remain on the recommended and low population lists indefinitely.Hats off to those willing to colonize new and underpopulated realms, I have no idea how you do it.

The last round of restarts, as you recall, became a bit more complicated, but we'll see how they do this time. Either way, expect a bit of bumpiness if early morning on the US pacific coast is your usual play time. Bornakk doesn't mention if any hotfixes will be applied during the downtime, but we'll be checking to see if anything's different on the other side.

Free character moves for March 28th - Thu, 27 Mar 2008 22:45:00 ESTBornakk, ye ol' blue poster, has announced a good bunch of character moves tonight. These moves will be active from March 28th (tomorrow) at noon PDT, and go until April 4th at noon PDT (next Friday). Get your character moves in fast if you want to take advantage of this, they often are shut off early.

There are two transfer groups available.

For the first transfer group, you can transfer from llidan, Mal'Ganis, Tichondrius, Gurubashi, Warsong, Mannoroth, and Burning Blade to Azshara, Maiev, Zuluhed, and Lethon.

For the second transfer group, you can transfer from Argent Dawn, Zul'jin, Ghostlands, and Aggramar to Muradin and Sisters of Elune.

Bornakk also tells us that the realms you can transfer off of have been chosen because they have had the highest sustained queues. The realms you can transfer to are the lowest population realms. This is an interesting tid bit of information from generally closed-door decision making.

A couple of months back, we relayed that Wowheadgained 3D models. Now, they're set to become better. We mentioned in the previous post that player models were in the works, and I'm here to bring you an exclusive preview. Users will be able to see items on any race and gender character model, so if you're trying to figure out how those boots look on a female Tauren, you're in luck (although it's a good bet that they'll look odd). Wowhead sister site Thottbot will be receiving this improvement as well.

Competitor WOWDB has had the ability to preview items on a character model since they launched a bit over a month ago, tying into their profile system. However, they seem to lack Wowhead's impressive high-quality mode.

In fact, the quality of Wowhead's 3D renders will be increased in the upcoming update, especially in the high-quality Java version. See the gallery below for some examples and comparison shots; the image above is also a Wowhead render (not a screenshot). This has got to be the most accurate preview I've seen on any database site.

Just in case the original $5k was too much for you on that Dell Warcraft laptop deal, Dell has apparently dropped the price to a still pretty high $4k, or $3999. That's still more than our questionable pricing out of the laptop and all of the goodies that come with it, but then again, it is a sweet gaming-spec, Warcraft branded laptop -- can you really put a price on a paradise like that?

And yes, it still does come with all the old stuff, including Alliance or Horde branding, all the Warcraft software, and a bunch of other goodies including those beta keys that we still have no idea are for. Where Dell found $1000 to cut out of that deal we can't figure either, unless... you don't think they were just topping more than a cool grand of straight profit on this deal, were they? Sneaky moneymaking bastards!

Kael'thas in two places at once - Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:00:00 ESTThis thread over on the forums starts off a little silly (it's a complaint about Kael'thas being both in Tempest Keep and Magisters' Terrace at the same time), but later on gets into some really interesting commentary and thinking about just how the lore and story in this game works. Obviously, there are no problems with having Kael in two places at once (as Bornakk says with an epic burn, a character can be alive on page 1 and dead on page 10 at the same time), but it's interesting that that's not always what happens in the game. Griftah, for example, was never in two places at once, and neither was Hemet Nesingwary -- both of those characters had progressive lore storylines. But Kael, like Thrall, has a storyline that evolves as a character moves forward in their own storyline, and so Blizzard has placed him in two different places at once, and asked players to move their own characters to see the storyline in order.

Interesting stuff. Scuzz makes a particularly interesting point in the thread -- the World of Warcraft really does revolve around player characters, not NPCs. If you discover through quests that Onyxia is actually pretending to be a woman in Stormwind, all of the NPCs your character meets will be shocked. It's a sign of Blizzard's talent at game creation that something can be both known by most players and discovered by one player almost every single day.

Of course there's no problem with Kael being in two places -- I would rather have my character move through a changing world than have Blizzard worry about making sure "reality" was kept correctly. But it's an interesting line being walked very well -- if you do the two instances in order, you get a much better story than if we were simply fighting a generic third boss in Magisters' Terrace.